Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It’s Saturday Night again –
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.
1) Share something unexpected that you’ve found while researching an ancestor.
When I first read Randy’s post, I couldn’t think of anything unexpected or unforeseen in my genealogy research. Then I remembered my collaboration with Sandy Kuchenreuther.
Our partnership dates back to the days when email, mailing lists, message boards, RootsWeb, and GenWeb were the cutting-edge tools for genealogists, replacing the era of the Genealogy Helper and SASE (self-addressed stamped envelopes). These new resources quickly became invaluable to the genealogy community.
Though I don’t recall exactly how Sandy and I connected, it was likely through a mailing list or message board. At the time, I was trying to link my second great-grandfather, Hiram M. Currey, to another Hiram M. Currey in Peoria, Illinois. That fragile connection was based on a birth record in a family Bible and the tick marks from the 1840 census. From there, I was working to connect the Hiram Currey of Peoria to Hiram M. Currey, the state treasurer of Ohio. A county biography mentioned two sons of the Ohio Currey—Thomas and Providence M. Currey—but made no reference to a son named Hiram.
That’s when I shifted focus to researching Thomas M. Currey and his brother, Providence M. Currey. Over the years, Sandy and I exchanged countless emails and letters as we pieced together our Currey research. One of the valuable documents Sandy shared was a photocopy of James B. Currey’s obituary. The obituary stated that James Currey had “come to Oregon in the fall of 1857” and was active in the “Republican party of Holt County.” Confused by the reference to Holt County in Oregon, we exchanged several emails trying to locate it. Eventually, we realized the obituary was referring not to Oregon the state, but to the town of Oregon in Holt County, Missouri.
Sadly, I lost contact with Sandy when my work responsibilities took over, and my genealogy research fell by the wayside. Although Sandy passed away in 2023, I still cherish the memory of our collaboration and the discoveries we made together.
Sandra Lee Kuchenreuther (1935-2023)
I had a genea-buddy like Sandy, too. Nona and I made lots of Williams discoveries together in the pre-internet era. She passed away 4 years ago at the advanced age of 96 years.
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